Technological and social adaptation to COVID-19: food supply for vulnerable urban groups in five global cities

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed large cities worldwide to unprecedented challenges.

COVID-19 enters now a second phase, further straining access to food among vulnerable urban groups such as older people, people with disabilities or underlying health conditions, single parents, low-income households, ethnic minorities and migrants.

This research focuses on the role of digital technology and social adoptattion in assuring food security for these groups in a pandemic and how locally-based organizations, ad hoc community initiatives and municipalities have responded.

It provides a comparative analysis on urban locally-based and/or community responses and their sustainability aims to better prepare Sweden for similar events that challenges local access to food.

This research looks at five cities: Stockholm, Seoul, Sydney, London, and Wuhan, taking account of various levels of COVID-19 responses and urban form typologies.

The international research team, including leading scholars from social policy and urban studies, will collect data through conventional means as well as tapping into a range of online data sources and use combined analytical methods designed to adapt to COVID-19 restriction of travelling.

It will produce academic outputs that will make significant contributions to urban, policy and sociological knowledge and practical knowledge base for developing urban resilience to crisis that will have a wide use for policy makers, CSO, businesses and the public at large.